Bank officials no-shows once again for scheduled meeting in Cleveland

CLEVELAND Federal banking regulators are still evaluating the compliance rating of Ohio Savings Bank and its new owners under the Community Reinvestment Act, which could have an impact on future regional expansion plans.

But the principals in the discussion — the parent company, New York Community Bank and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — remained no-shows at the latest rescheduled community meeting July 18, held at Holy Grove Missionary Baptist Church.

The latest point of contention was the fact the July 18 meeting was open to the public, outside the parameters of “30 community stakeholders” that NYCB and FDIC officials said they agreed to following a meeting in December, just prior to the closing of the mainstay branch at North Moreland and Larchmere boulevards.

The July 18 meeting was attended by about three dozen people, many of whom are getting upset at the stone wall they seem to have run up against.

“The representatives from NYCB were absolutely unwilling to consider any options,” said former customer Ken Rapoport, who gathered signatures for petitions opposing the bank closure in December.

Cleveland Councilwoman Mamie J. Mitchell suggested July 18 that stakeholders “call their bluff” and send exactly 30 people to a future meeting with NYCB and the FDIC officials in the office of U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio.

“One of the ways to engage a lender is to talk about their lending record,” said Ohio Fair Lending Commission Coordinator Charles Bromley, who likened the current stalemate to the impasse over the shape of the table during the Vietnam War’s Paris Peace Talks.

But, Bromley added, “they don’t seem to like the idea of meeting in church basements.”

Fudge, who had to stay in Washington, D.C., for federal deficit ceiling hearings, plans to take a list of requests from the community to the FDIC.

According to data obtained through Case Western Reserve University and Neighborhood Progress Inc., the amount of money loaned by NYCB to Cuyahoga County in 2009 was less than 2 percent of the dollars on deposit.

But the record for the City of Cleveland was even worse — .09 percent, or just over $1,000, compared to more than $1 million in deposits from the city this year.

It comes as no surprise to Sally Hill, whose husband Jack chaired the July 18 meeting. They saw NYCB take $2 billion in taxpayer money from the FDIC and use it to buy Ohio Savings.

Then NYCB sold the Hills’ mortgage on their Buckeye-Woodland home to Saxon Servicing, which she describes as the equivalent of a debt collection company.

“If the mortgage payment is due on the first of the month, and they don’t have it, the next day they’re calling you — at work,” Sally Hill said.

While Bromley and others are critical of NYCB’s perceived minority lending shortfalls, son Charles Hill maintains “it’s not just a black-and-white thing — it’s our community.”

Many former customers of the North Moreland branch lamented the loss of a bank in walking distance, replaced by a cash-only ATM machine buried deep in the Fairhill Partners building, where parking is a problem and the building closes at 8:30 p.m., Rapoport said.

Former customers have said traveling to other branches at Farnsleigh, Cedar or Lee roads is out of their way. Customer Steven Pass added NYCB has also tacked on “numerous additional banking fees.”

NYCB officials have responded to community outcry by alternately distributing water bottles with the Ohio Savings logo to disenfranchised merchants in the Larchmere Commercial District, and donating $25,000 to the fledgling Shaker Heights Community Development Corp.

“I was hoping they would show us the check (July 18),” Bromley quipped.

Lynne Alfred, who has owned The Dancing Sheep on Larchmere with her husband for the past 13 years, and had been a bank customer for 30 years, asked if there might be grounds for a complaint charging NYCB with discrimination against the elderly and the handicapped.

“I was always impressed at how many elderly and frail people were using the bank at North Moreland,” Alfred said. “Some of this is so abhorrent that perhaps there is some action we could be pursuing in terms of banking regulations.”

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